Secondary purchaser clause stalls Rainbow

‘Against the wall at the 11th hour’, council sets up an emergency meeting for Thursday

Despite last week’s good news that construction on the Rainbow
housing development should start Aug. 1
st
, the waters around the
future neighbourhood have turned muddy.

Several councillors are outraged that a “secondary purchaser
clause” was slipped into the housing agreement and have stalled the project
until an alternative deal is nailed out.

The secondary purchaser clause allows Whistler residents not on
the Whistler Housing Authority (WHA) waitlist to buy a home in Rainbow if no
one on the waitlist wants to buy it. Councillors worry this clause, coupled
with the fact the Rainbow units are priced higher than expected, may lead to a
significant percentage of the homes not going to those who most need affordable
housing in Whistler.

“I think I have fought as hard as anybody has to keep this
project on the rails,” said Councillor Tim Wake.

“I want to see it move forward, but I can’t see it move forward
in this format because basically it is not going to meet the need it was
intended to meet.”

Councillor Eckhard Zeidler, visibly livid, went as far as to
call the clause “absolutely outrageous”.

“I am mad as hell, and I am not going to take it anymore,” said
Zeidler.

Almost all members of council said Monday they were frustrated
this news was coming to them at the “11
th
hour” when their “backs
were against the wall”. They referred the housing agreement bylaw back to municipal
staff and called an emergency council meeting for Thursday evening (June 19 at
5:30 in municipal hall).

Councillor Bob Lorriman was the only councillor to vote against
the referral. He said: “We are essentially the board of directors, we are
responsible for what our staff does, and if the developer negotiated this in
good faith based on that, I do not believe we can have integrity and pull the
rug out from underneath them at this stage.”

Even though council first saw the secondary purchaser clause
last week, it came to municipal staff almost 11 months ago from the Rainbow
developers. Bob MacPherson, general manager of community life for the Resort
Municipality of Whistler, said that the clause was only ready for “prime time”
three weeks ago.

“We had an agreement with Rainbow about what the employee
housing covenant would look like in June 2007, and then in July, they
introduced a whole new concept that had several stages of potential
purchasers,” explained MacPherson.

“We had some intensive discussions around that over a few
months, and following that there was a lot of back and forth between Rainbow’s
lawyer and our lawyer about how best to word the intent of the document. When
it was ready for prime time, it went to council.”